


You Said They Were Dust, and I Understand Now,

by MercuryHomophony



Series: Behold the Field in Which I store my Headcannons (TAZ) [8]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fishing, Gen, Light Angst, Taako is a good brother-in-law
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 19:26:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12087762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryHomophony/pseuds/MercuryHomophony
Summary: You didn’t mean you didn’t care, you just didn’t know how.--Or: Taako takes Barry on a fishing trip with ulterior motives.





	You Said They Were Dust, and I Understand Now,

**Author's Note:**

> More Reaper family, tho this takes place much earlier, maybe 100-200 years after Story and Song. Really gotta build a timeline for these...
> 
> Also, I'm posting from my phone, so please lmk if the format becomes wonky.
> 
> Enjoy!

It’s a nice day, Taako mulls idly, flicking his line out across the water. The sun is high, and the day is warm and hazy, but the large, fluffy clouds slowly passing overhead provide enough shade that he’s not roasting alive in his rowboat.

He’d be concerned about his fishing buddy cooking too, but, well, that ship had sailed 40, 50 years ago, when Barry had died.

To his credit, Barry is doing very well for a dead man walking. Taako supposes that, after being a lich for so long, being a Reaper instead isn’t that big of a change. If anything, it’s an improvement - he can still eat like this, after all. Eyes hidden behind his shades, he studies the human, even as every part of him speaks to disinterest and laziness. Barry is relaxing, too - his line hangs over one side, fishing rod propped between his knees, leaning back with his eyes closed against the light. Still, Taako is a master in the art of relaxation, and he can see something is off.

But that’s good. That’s why he organized this impromptu fishing trip to begin with.

He tilts his hat down, better shading his eyes, and takes a deep sign of contentment as he settles further into the boat. Here’s something Taako knows about Barry - if something is upsetting him, you can’t approach him about it. He’s more likely to deflect or run if you do, unless you’re Lup, and even then it could be a gamble. Taako knows the secret, though. He learned it, decades ago, on a beach where Barry confirmed something Taako had suspected for years. If you made Barry comfortable, if you gave him room to speak, and the time he needed to do so, he’d start things of his own accord. And  _ that _ was when you could wheedle and tease the full story from him, but not a moment before then.

Taako had set up comfortable. Taako was giving him room. Now all he had to do was wait, and on a fishing trip, there was nothing better to do.

The sun came out from behind a cloud, and Taako flicked his ears back, tucking them under his sun hat. He heard Barry shift, opened one eye to watch as the human-Reaper lifted an arm to drape it over his eyes.

A cool breeze ghosted over his bare arms, and Taako enjoyed the relief from the heat of the sun, sighing again. He might have had an ulterior motive for this fishing trip, but it was still nice to take advantage of the silence, to appreciate the little things life had to offer.

It was really, a beautiful day.

“…”

Taako had to force his ear not to twitch at the almost audible sound of Barry thinking, planning to speak. He didn’t grin, didn’t smirk, didn’t move aside from opening his eyes, watching as Barry opened and closed his mouth a few times.

Some ten minutes later, he finally spoke. “Hey, Taako?”

“Mmhm?”

“Do you…” he trailed off, waffling for a moment, and Taako waited patiently. “Do you remember that thing you said, at the end of our first year here?”

Huh. Taako scoured his memory, trying to recall if they’d done anything special on the anniversary of the Day of Story and Song. They’d partied,  _ pretty _ hard, from what little Taako remembered, but… “You’re gonna have to be more specific, Barrold.”

He shifted, sitting up a little. “That whole thing about… dust?”

Taako’s train of thought screeched to a halt, rerouted, and jumped track to land him on the same page. “Oh.” The  _ very _ first year. That was… not where he thought this was going to go. “Uh, yeah. I remember. Why?”

Barry rearranged himself, clearly trying to settle back into a casual position, but failing miserably. “How did-” He cleared his throat, and tried again. “How did you… do it?”

Taako felt something dislodge in his gut, steadily sinking. “Do what?”

“…” Barry scratched his jaw, just under his ear, and Taako realized this was about to get in deeper than he’d realized. “H-how did y-you…” he stuttered, slowly, “sh- shut yourself off, like that?”

Taako kept his breathing even, but shifted upright, properly giving Barry his attention. “Why do you ask?”

“I- it…” He sat up suddenly, looking over at Taako. “I get it, now- what you were saying.”

Taako’s jaw dropped. “What?”

“The thing, about dust.” Taako must have broken the floodgates with his question, because suddenly, words were  _ pouring _ out of Barry. “I didn’t get it at the time, what you meant when you said that, because - because Lup and I, we believed - we  _ had _ to believe - that we could rescue them, that knowing them would mean something, we had to remember that there were people we could save, needed to know there were people outside the seven of us, but- but we’ve been doing this Reaper work, and- and we bust necromancers, mostly, but sometimes we have to lead their victims to the Astral Plane, or guide souls who don’t realize they’re even  _ dead _ , and - I don’t know, Kravitz has done this for so long, and Lup just, she has a way with people, and  _ you _ , you’re still alive and meeting people and I’m - I have to bring them over, Taako!” His voice echoed out over the surface of the lake, startling some ducks, but Barry kept going. “And it’s not like the Hunger, we’re not - we’re the ones bringing them to the end, you know? We’re the end, we’re  _ it _ , and-” he cut himself off, burying his face in his hands. “I just- I don’t know how to deal with it, w-without…. Trying to shut it out. Like you did.” 

“I can’t believe this,” Taako said, before he could stop himself. Of the seven of the IPRE members, Taako had always been the one least likely to trust, to reach out - Barry, despite his initial awkwardness, tended to make connections, drawing people in with his dorky charm, and he had always treasured that. Bonds had been what kept them going on their race from the Hunger, and Taako knew, from the moment they’d figured that out, that  _ he _ was certainly not the one providing the most fuel.

“I know,” Barry said, sounding miserable. “It’s not- it’s not  _ great _ , but it’s been eating at me. I don’t know what else to do, Taako.”

“Alright, pack it up,” Taako snapped, reeling in his line and shoving it into the Pocket Spa (he’d clean it up  _ later _ ).

Barry looked up, startled, as Taako retrieved his wand. “Huh?” 

“You heard me, Barry, pack up, I gotta show you something, pronto.”

Barry jumped into action, hurriedly packing up his own fishing gear only seconds before Taako put his wand to the water, propelling their boat back to shore and scaring off the last of the ducks. 

The second they touched land, Taako was vaulting out of the boat, gesturing Barry to follow him. Together they walked, Taako shutting down Barry’s attempts to question him with a raised hand - this conversation would be easier if he didn’t have to say much, and for that, he needed props.

It was maybe a five minute walk, made shorter by Taako’s brisk pace and Barry’s scrambles to keep up with him, but finally, Taako pulled up short, standing at the edge of an old, familiar clearing. Behind him, Barry just managed to stop himself from colliding with him. “Taako, where-?” he started, frowning - but the sight of the clearing in front of them cut him short, and he gave Taako a baffled look.

“Yeah, just like,” Taako waved vaguely at one of the three carved stumps, “grab a seat, my man. Mags’ is probably comfy, I think Merle’s would be a bit too small…

Barry looked around again, more perplexed and lost, but obediently walked over to the larger carved stump, taking a seat. “I, uh… would have thought these would be gone, by now.” 

“I’ve been maintaining it,” Taako said, more breezily than the implication warranted. It wasn’t lost on Barry, though, and the human’s bushy eyebrows shot up over the frames of his glasses. “And, actually, it sorta ties in with what I wanted to say.”

The clearing, of course, was familiar to the both of them. Out of their living - er, their Prime Material Plane-accessing family, they were the only two who felt any sort of connection to it. Anyone else might see it as a convenient stopping point, and one that’s well used, by the look of the three stumps, worn down to resemble chairs.

Taako and Barry saw a campsite, visited twice - once at the beginning of a long journey, and once at the end, with three stumps specially carved to fit three unassuming adventurers.

Barry looked a little dwarfed in Magnus’s chair, but he had always been dwarfed by the man himself, too, so it made sense. Taako lounged in his own chair, which fit his form perfectly, even after all these years, and searched for his words.

“Barry,” he started, and the human turned back from examining the clearing, back into the conversation  _ he  _ started. “I’m gonna say some things, and I want you to  _ really _ listen, ‘cuz I’m probably only gonna say all this once. I was-” He hesitated. He wanted to say  _ wrong _ , he was  _ wrong _ about what he had said, all those years ago, but that wasn’t quite right. Mislead didn’t cover it, either, but he finally settled with, “I was  _ shortsighted _ , when I said… what I said before. Like, don’t get me wrong - that was where Taako was, that was  _ honest-to-Istus _ Taako, but… but it wasn’t -  _ isn’t _ \- a solution. It’s not a good state to be, you feel?” He paused, glancing over at the human, and Barry nodded, slowly, after a moment’s hesitation. “And like - yeah, it was a good short term solution, but… it never would’ve worked in the long run, and -  _ Fuck _ , Barry,” he said, startling his brother-in-law with his volume. “It’s not  _ you _ , is it? Shutting people out, it fucking - it’s a bad deal. And I only did it because, because we had no  _ idea _ what was happening to the people we left behind, and this?” He gestured at Barry’s whole deal, “this Reaper shit? Not even comparable.”

Barry had been listening, surprise slowly fading into confusion as Taako went on. “Umm… I’m not really sure I follow, Taako. What does that have to do with-?” and he gestured to the chairs and the old campfire pit.

Taako cleared his throat, lacing his fingers together in a nervous tic. Right. Get to the point, finish the heart-to-heart. Easy. “Right, I was  _ getting  _ to that, Barrold. So, you know how Mags and Merle are like… gone.” Barry nodded, clearly still not understanding where this was headed. “And you - you know where they went. And you know they’re happy, right?”

“Yes…?”

“Okay, good. So, already, they’re nothing like the people we ran into during that century, because you  _ know _ what’s going on with them.”

“But that doesn’t really-”

“Hush, BBJ, Taako’s not done. So, my other point - what are we sitting on right now?”

Barry stared, completely lost. “Ummm… Tree stumps?”

Taako rolled his eyes. “Well, yeah, but - more specifically, we’re sitting on part of Maggie’s legacy, right?”

“I… guess so…? Taako, where are you going with this?”

“They aren’t Dust,” Taako blurted. “None of them are. There’s - there’s so much  _ proof _ of every fucking person here, from-” and he gestured to the chairs, meticulously managed with magic every few years, though he would vehemently deny it, “to all the people that remember them - hell, even the people who  _ don’t _ . Everybody leaves shit behind, and as long as this plane is going, that’s not gonna stop.  _ They’re _ not gonna stop.” He paused to take a deep breath, painfully aware of how Barry was staring at him, wide-eyed. “We fought for this plane, so that  _ no one. _ Would ever be dust again. And you, and Lup and Kravitz might be the next step in all of that, but - it sure as  _ hell _ isn’t the end. Not compared to the shit we’ve seen. And -” he waffled slightly. “And I don’t know what it’s like to do your job - probably won’t until I like, kick it and join the spook crew,” he added in a mumble to himself, “but it’s important, and maybe it feels like you’re putting an end to them, but there are  _ so many people _ in the world, and so many people in the Astral Plane, and they all mean something, a-and-” he stuttered, actually  _ stuttered _ , and so he pulled himself back with a sigh. “And, the answer isn’t to become like  _ me _ . You, of all people, should know how powerful bonds are. Don’t - don’t cut yourself off from them, okay?” 

Barry stared at him, and he leveled one of his own right back. “Taako… that… really didn’t make much sense?”

He scowled, throwing his hands up in the air. “Fuckin’ sue me, Bluejeans, I’m doing my best here!” he snapped, before noticing that Barry was smiling. He lightened his scowl to a playful glower.

“I know.”

They lapsed into silence for a moment - Taako unsure of what to add to that, to make his point known - as if he even knew what kind of point he was making, aside from hey,  _ don’t _ \- and unable to read Barry’s curious expression as he glanced around the clearing. Antsy, Taako shifted in his seat, suddenly feeling enclosed by the well-fitted chair…

“Hey, Taako?”

He sat up, too quickly, and lay back too suddenly to be truly casual, and he knew Barry noticed. “Yeah?”

“Why did you keep this place the way it was?”

Well, there was the honest answer, and the answer he was prepared to give. Taako shrugged. “They’re some dope-ass seats, Barrold," he lied clearly. “It’d be a shame to let them rot.”

Barry nodded, a small smile slowly lifting his lips. He’d seen right through it, but that was okay - Taako said a lot more with what he didn’t say than with what he  _ did _ , anyways.

“Yeah, I think I get what you mean.”

“I’d fucking hope so,” Taako snorted, no real malice in his words. He stretched, before pulling himself back to his feet. “C’mon, maybe the fish are finally out and about.”

Barry agreed, and the two of them began to make their way back to the lake through the woods… though, not without a secret glance back for each of them.

“…hey, Taako?”

“…”

“…thanks.”

Taako, walking ahead, allowed himself a smug grin. “Don’t mention it, Bar.”

 


End file.
